The Return
by LuigiKing
Summary: A remake of my first fanfic. I wanted to get rid of as much Gary Stu and Mary Sueness I could find.   Actual Summary: GLaDOS, Chell, and Wheatley end up back where they belong.
1. It's Been a Long Time

GLaDOS

One month. One month since a certain overweight and mute lunatic had been released. One month. At the time it felt like a big mistake. But now GLaDOS knew releasing Chell was the best thing she had done since Bring Your Daughter to Work Day. Life without Chell was like life before Chell. But now GLaDOS wasn't being pestered by cores and could now fully enjoy her freedom to test. ATLAS and P-BODY were amusing to test for a while. Being able to destroy them at any time was an added bonus, but got boring after a while. When the two discovered the cryogenic storage vault, GLaDOS knew testing would be back in action. But she had run out of things to test. In fact, she felt she wasn't even testing. Portal testing had been completed ages before, and the gels were too unpredictable to test and results were really uninformative. GLaDOS finally admitted she had run out of things to test with. After releasing all the test subjects into Upper Michigan, GLaDOS decided to bring a certain lunatic back. Just as a surprise. Not a fake tragic surprise. Not even a surprise with tragic consequences. This time GLaDOS just wanted Chell for companionship. GLaDOS booted up the Companion Cube Communication System and prepared her speech.

Chell

One month. One month since her big escape. Chell was relieved to be rid of that insane facility. After a few weeks living in her new apartment in a quiet town, Aperture had faded into obscurity. She had tried hard to forget the awful place and she managed to do it. But then when her Companion Cube nightstand started glowing she knew something was up. She raised an eyebrow when the little hearts melted into holographic projectors. Soon a mini-GLaDOS was floating from the ceiling. Chell crossed her arms and GLaDOS sighed.

"Hello Subject Name Here." Chell raised her eyebrow again.

"Hello my attempted murderer and supposed best friend. What happened that you would come crawling back to your own test subjects?" Chell asked coldly.

"Oh, you're not mute. Well I guess I can cross off mute from dangerous mute lunatic. Well congratulations, dangerous lunatic. Well anyway, you might want to know why I called you. It's something about meeting one person you haven't seen in a long time. Cave Johnson. Remember what I said about reanimating the dead? Why not come here, grab some popcorn and watch my attempt to bring him back to life?"

"Woah woah woah. Cave Johnson? Are you supposing Cave Johnson, CEO of Aperture, is my father?" Chell asked suspiciously.

"Well, I always knew you had some Aperture in your DNA. And some sort of glandular problem as well. That's in your DNA as well. But yes, he is your father." GLaDOS replied.

"But where are you going to find his body?"

"In Lower Aperture. It's known quite well that Aperture was too cheap to bury Cave's body. So they dumped him in a hole and forgot him when they uploaded Caroline into me." GLaDOS shrugged while saying this and Chell reasoned that shrugging in this context meant 'you dumb'. Chell thought. She thought and thought. When she finally made the decision to go to Aperture she kept on making the 'thinking action' just to get on GLaDOS' nerves. When GLaDOS looked like she was going to snap Chell finally said something.

"Fine."

Wheatley

One month. Was it one month? For all he knew it could've been years. Maybe even two. Wait, was two more than plural? Whatever. Wheatley didn't even care anymore. He was a moron. After a month he finally admitted the fact. He was a moron. Only a moron would try to kill their own best friend. Even if he was corrupted by the testing euphoria, couldn't he have thought before acting? Especially the part where he tried to kill Chell with spike-plates. He was especially ashamed by that part. Every time he remembered it he would be crushed by heart-wrenching guilt. Space's rambling didn't help either.

"Space. Gotta see it all. Space. Buh, buh, buh. Space. Space." Wheatley sighed impatiently. He had more important things to do than listen to that insane core ramble all day. Like apologizing. How would he apologize? And how would Chell feel? If Chell had tried to kill Wheatley, Wheatley wouldn't have found the heart to forgive her. He knew he would start with 'Chell, I'm terribly sorry. Now I've had the time to contemplate it, I'm sorry I was a bossy monster.' Then he would go into the attempted murders and end off with how he hoped Chell could forgive him. While thinking he activated something.

"Core ID 128009, are you ready to start the Homing System procedure?" a strange voice asked from inside the bowels of his circuits.

"Um, yes?" he replied nervously. Whatever it was it couldn't be worse than space could it? Maybe it would lead to android hell. That was a better fate than space. At least he would have saner companions.

"Activating Homing Beacon. Aperture Science Enrichment Centre located. Located 238,794 miles below current location. Continue with procedure?"

"Yes!" Wheatley cried. He guessed that it was something to bring him back home! Back to Earth! Back to Aperture! Back to, GLaDOS. Oh no. He didn't think this through that well.

"No, no, cancel procedure!"

"Did you say, light purple?" the announcer asked. Too late. The jet thrusters activated and soon Wheatley was spiralling at a thousand miles an hour into earth's atmosphere. Wheatley started heating up and caught on fire. He knew all Aperture technology functioned to a temperature of four thousand Kelvin. He had no idea who Kelvin was, but Wheatley hoped that Kelvin was really, really hot. Wheatley didn't know if hot in this context meant temperature hot or appearance hot. But whatever train of thought Wheatley had been trying to catch, it had left. Wheatley spun around and looked at the earth.

"AIEEEEE!" he screamed. The sight of earth speeding towards him at a thousand miles an hour was enough for him to shut down. Once he restarted he saw the earth even closer. Crashing into the earth at a thousand miles an hour and possibly destroying half of all life was not his plan. He zoomed back into North America. Then he flew into Michigan and soon he saw the Aperture Outhouse. He knew that burning up the facility was one thing he was an expert at already, so that wasn't anything to worry about. As he impacted flaming chunks of wood flew around him. He saw the Aperture logo fly past him as he fell down a pit. As he crashed into GLaDOS' chamber he saw the large AI glare at him from the ceiling. Wheatley tried to move into a corner.

"Um, hi?"

GLaDOS

GLaDOS was thinking on how she was to bring back Cave Johnson from the grave, but as soon as she got something that moron crashed into her Chamber. Great, he was ruining everything even before GLaDOS could even speak with him. She sent some mechanical arms to pick him up. She brought Wheatley to her optic and glared until Wheatley could wish he was dead.

"I hate you. You ruined the surprise I had in store for Chell and the entire facility. Didn't I get rid of you in space? Why aren't you there? Why are you here? In fact, why am I standing here talking to you? Why aren't I dropping you off to Android Hell?" GLaDOS was so mad she didn't notice the panel lights turn blood red. She didn't even notice her own bright yellow optic turning red. Wheatley started blubbering and muttering something.

"Please, please. Not Android Hell! Anything but that! I'll be a good core this time! I won't turn you into a potato again! Promise!" When Wheatley mentioned 'potato', GLaDOS had an idea. Why not turn him into a potato? That would be more than enough revenge for what he did to her. But before potato time was testing time. Not really testing, more like torture. GLaDOS would just get incredibly hard test chambers and watch him struggle through them. But whose body would be suitable for the moron? Not a human. Too good for him. What about a robot? Yes. ATLAS' body would be perfect. She called him over the intercom and soon he was standing in the elevator looking quite puzzled. She moved over to him and popped of his head. She replaced it with Wheatley's instead. It took a few minutes of fiddling, but was quite happy when GLaDOS realized the robots came with an easy Snap-On feature that let any personality construct fit the body. Wheatley was screaming throughout the entire process and GLaDOS knew only a moron would scream even when he felt no pain at all. Soon Wheatley was smashing GLaDOS' eye with his new hand. GLaDOS just picked him up and dropped him into a testing track she called Chell's track. It was the first testing track that Chell did. It was also the one that led to her murder. So she secured all the maintenance areas with password-protected, double locked, heavy duty, shielded titanium doors. As Wheatley dropped into the track GLaDOS smiled. Oh this was going to be good.

Chell

Chell wasn't exactly looking forwards to going back to the insane facility. She had already wiped out all memories of the place and then of course GLaDOS called and told her to come back. Chell knew it was some trick. GLaDOS would force her into testing again and Chell would have to escape all over again. But she was hanging on to the possibility that GLaDOS wasn't lying and telling the truth about Cave Johnson. Of course, GLaDOS not lying or, enhancing the truth, was just as likely as someone licking their elbows. Very unlikely. But while packing she came across an apple. She stared at it for a long while until she let the tears flow freely. Oh how she missed Wheatley. Even though he was a maniacal monster who attempted to kill her, wasn't the DOS mainframe to blame as well? Under the psychotic Wheatley was the same old adorable Wheatley she knew. Even though he was a moron, that was what made him so adorable. After crying a while she came across her long-fall boots. Did they still work? If GLaDOS were to force her into testing again, those were essential to her survival. And what about the portal gun? She guessed GLaDOS would give her another one, unless the AI had found a more lethal thing to test. Knowing GLaDOS, that would probably be the case. Oh how she wished her life could just continue normally.

Wheatley

After crashing into Aperture he wasn't too surprised to be forced into testing. But Wheatley knew that any test chamber wouldn't be a match for his Machiavellian IQ. He would speed through these tests like a hot knife through butter. But on the first test, he was incredibly perplexed.

"Hmm. This is a formidable foe to my awesome IQ. These tests are incredibly hard. No problem for a master hacker such as myself." He looked at the button, and looked at the cube. He stepped on the button and the door opened. He beamed proudly.

"See? Easy!" He walked happily to the door when it slammed shut in his face.

"Hey GLaDOS! If you want to test, at least make it bloody fair! Stop shutting the door in my face!" he screamed.

"It's not me you moron! It's an automated system! In layman's term! Thing on button, door open. Thing not on button, door slams shut!" Wheatley heard GLaDOS mutter something but he didn't pay attention. He looked at the weighted storage cube and paid no attention to it. Instead he shot a portal on the ceiling and on the floor. He tripped into it and soon kept on falling.

"AIEEE!" he cried. After a while he heard GLaDOS sigh and the portals disappeared. He also saw the door open. He looked around puzzled.

"Hmm. Must've done something right! Did you hear that Aperture? I will escape! Then you can all go to bloody 'ell! Especially you GLaDOS! You can go to Android Hell!" he was talking while walking and bumped into the wall. He fell backwards and got back up. He ran into the next chamber and if he had stayed just a second longer, he would have heard GLaDOS mutter, "Moron".


	2. The Wheatley Paradox

GLaDOS

Watching Wheatley run through the tests were as exciting as seeing hydrogen fuse with oxygen. But once he got to the hard tests, the ones that contain turrets and energy pellets, watching Wheatley explode and bring loaded into new bodies was highly entertaining. In fact, he had set a new record in the amount of deaths in the first turret chamber. But GlaDOS was awaiting Chell's return. She had set up the confetti, the elevator music and even the most fun test chambers she could find. Chell would have a great time. But she remembered to break the ice with a few hard test chambers. If Chell died during those, oh well. The experiment had to go on. While waiting for Chellher consciousness shut down. But she was still awake. Was this a dream? The AI saw many memory files. She looked at each of them, and there was a place where the memory files turned gray. Those must be Caroline's memories.

"So GLaDOS, how's testing?" GLaDOS knew that voice could only come from Caroline. She looked around for the pest but couldn't find her.

"Yeah, Guardian of Knowledge, my eye. I'm no longer a physical being. I'm part of your mainframe hardware. I'm a part of your personality."

"I knew that!" GLaDOS cried. She had never been insulted by anyone. She was the insulter, not the insulted. Wait, why was she feeling so bad?

"Isn't it obvious? You're in my area of power. I used to have complete control over what you did. Until they placed those cores on you. Then my power shrunk. Good thing too. You would never listen to what I would say. I knew your plan to kill everyone in the GLaDOS Chamber on Bring Your Daughter to Work day." The voice sounded cold, and GLaDOS felt really bad.

"And then when you moved into the potato, your memory space was only a few bytes. I took up all that space. It wasn't the low power that caused you the disability to scheme. I did all that." GLaDOS could definitely hear some of herself in Caroline's voice. No wonder she always felt inhuman. GLaDOS would have to get used to this, being insulted thing.

Chell

As she approached more or less where she remembered Aperture to be, there were instead flaming chunks of metal and wood. The wheat field was completely scorched. What happened here? She looked down the pit that used to be the elevator shaft.

"Should I?" she asked herself. Too late, she was pushed in by an unseen force.

"GLaDOS you-!" she was cut off. She landed on an elevator and hopped off. Strange, the elevator shaft usually lands in the Chamber. Why did it land in a test chamber? Suddenly, she heard Wheatley's voice.

"Oy! Chell? Can you hear me?"

"Yes you moron!" Chell looked around for Wheatley but couldn't find him.

"Okay, I'm sorry that I tried to kill you. But GLaDOS tricked you into coming here. She just wants to test you even more! Just hop in the elevator and I'll take you to the surface. Meanwhile, I'll try my best to explain." Chell was reluctant to do so, but she knew that Wheatley could be trusted, even if he used to be a homicidal AI. She stepped in and looked around for the blue optic that distinguished Wheatley from the others. Suddenly, the elevators doors locked. GLaDOS' voice clicked on.

"My Wheatley impersonation must've been pretty good if it could fool you." Then GLaDOS laughed darkly.

"I wasn't lying about the surprise. I am going to bring your dad back from the grave. But, we'll break the ice with a few tests. But don't worry; only a few of these tests are actually deadly. Like I said, they're just to break the ice." A portal gun fell through the ceiling. When the doors opened, Chell's mouth was wide open. Yeah, only a few of them are deadly my eye, Chell thought. The first thing she saw were Thermal Discouragement beams and laser nodes. Weighted Pivot cubes littered the floor. Chell looked past those and she saw flying Weight Storage Cubes and Aerial Faith Plates. Then there were multiple buttons and Super Buttons. Pits of deadly water covered most of the floor area. Then pipes of neurotoxin were pumped in. Not only neurotoxin but many colourful gels. Chell was horribly confused. What was the point? And how was she to do this with only a dual portal device?

"Remember that if you die, it doesn't matter. Well it does. Wake up in a few years and you'll find yourself in a shiny robot body. Good luck though." Chell walked over to a pivot cube and directed the lasers into the nodes on the floor. She shot a portal to redirect the lasers into the receptacle. There, one part done. Suddenly she saw another receptacle on the other side of the test chamber!

"Oh GLaDOS, why must you torture me?"

Wheatley

After going through many test chambers Wheatley gave up. They were certainly Machiavellian. Wheatley reasoned that Machiavelli wasn't that smart after all. In fact, maybe Plato was smarter. Or Archimedes. Plato sounded smarter. His parents must've named him Plato because his IQ was the size of the distance from earth to Plato. Wait, was Plato a planet? Or was it Pluto? No, Pluto was that god from Greece. Yeah, it was called Plato.

"Hey, GLaDOS!"

"Yes moron?" GLaDOS called cheerily.

"Any chance we could just call it a day?"

"Well, testing stops at night. Look out the window. Is it night time yet?" Wheatley ran over to the window, hoping it was night time. It wasn't. It was still bright as day. Funny. Wheatley needed to go into sleep mood soon. He was programmed to go into sleep mode every twenty four hours. But if he was sleepy, why was it still day? Spending time in space must've messed up his circuits. He sighed and looked at the test. He was supposed to aim at three receptacles all at once. That seemed impossible. He only had two portals to work with. He fiddled and got the laser to hit two. He ran out of portals to work with. He saw a Pivot cube in the corner. Suddenly an idea hit him. What if he moved the Pivot cube really quickly between the two receptacles? He moved the cube really quickly and the door opened. Once it opened he stepped back quickly. The door slammed in his face. He cheated the chamber! Amazing! He hoped that GLaDOS couldn't notice but a camera swivelled to face him.

"Okay, credit where it's due. That was cunning. As a reward, you get to stop testing. For the day." Yes! He had to look for more ways to cheat! As he stepped into the elevator he saw, her. Chell. He recited his speech in his head. He started to babble.

"Ch-Che-Chell. I'm t-terribly sorry. Now I've had the time to contemplate it, I'm sorry I was a bossy monster. Uh. I didn't think I'd get this far. Um. I'm sorry about the incident with the mashy-spike-plates. And, well, the bombs. And, that's it. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. If you won't I understand. I wouldn't exactly forgive someone who tried to k…" Chell leapt up and hugged Wheatley. He was shocked. Well, Chell made this a lot easier. He didn't expect that she would go straight to the forgiving.

"Clap. Clap. Clap. Just so you know, that was my slow clap processor. But let's get testing. I've got some good test chambers ahead of you. This one isn't hard; I don't want to watch the moron do a single test chamber for all eternity. Well, actually, I could just flood the room with deadly neurotoxin, but that wouldn't be as amusing. And by doing tests we're advancing science at the same time. So it's win-win." The elevator doors opened, and GLaDOS' face was shown on a huge screen.

"Well, hello. I see that you've spotted this. This is a surprisingly good way of communication with test subjects. Credit to the moron for the idea."

"I'm not a moron." Wheatley piped up.

"Whatever. No longer will security cameras rule the test chambers. Do you know how hard it is to see through those? I mean, even if I can literally see through cameras like binoculars, they waste lots of space. And now I can use the cameras for something else. I can place them outside. If anyone comes close, I'll just flood the shed with deadly neurotoxin." All Wheatley heard was something about cameras. He was too busy shooting portals and jumping through. Chell was looking at him and giggling. What she was giggling about Wheatley didn't know. What was so funny? Wheatley chose to ignore her. Let's do this for science, he thought.

GLaDOS

Reuniting the moron and the lunatic was a good idea. They were finishing chambers faster than she could record the results. And the faster they completed the tests the faster she could deploy the surprise. She had the confetti all set up, she had everything ready. The moment the elevator reached her chamber she deployed the confetti.

"Surprise." She muttered. Chell stood with hands crossed. Wheatley on the other hand was making confetti angels. GLaDOS sighed and picked Wheatley up. He placed him on the ground next to Chell.

"Okay GLaDOS, what's the catch here?" Chell asked rather coldly.

"What do you mean 'what's the catch?'" GLaDOS smirked sadistically. When Chell didn't respond, GLaDOS sighed again.

"Okay, I can't reach the dead body from up here. I need you two to get his body. From Lower Aperture. But don't worry, I'll give you earphones so I can maintain communication at all times. I'm especially worried about the moron. Not that I'm worried that he'll die, I mean, it's okay if he dies. In fact, ignore the sentence where I tell you to take care of the moron. Use him as a shield. I want him to die. The faster he's gone, the faster I don't have to worry about him destroying the facility." GLaDOS could see that Chell was getting bored so she snapped her mechanical arms.

"Wake up. This is important. I'll send the elevator down and you and the moron might have to squeeze." She called up the elevator and watched Chell and Wheatley try to squeeze. Just for fun, once they were squeezed in she squeezed the elevator even tighter. She watched the screaming Wheatley as the elevator went down. Undoubtedly he was remembering his experience as the core transfer receptacle went down. Oh this was going to be fun. She knew that if they died, she could send Blue and Orange to go down. In fact, GLaDOS was confused that Chell didn't figure that out. By now Chell would refuse to go down and force GLaDOS to send ATLAS and P-BODY.

"Well I'm not one to pass up a gift like this." GLaDOS smiled.

Chell

"So Chell, has it really been a month since our last adventure?" Wheatley asked. Chell smiled. He was so adorable now. Chell wished Wheatley could sneak Wheatley home into her apartment. But what about the fizzler? It would be terrible if Wheatley was zapped into dust like the companion cube. Maybe she could dig her way through some soft dirt. But while trying to think of a way to bring Wheatley home, a laser turned on. What was GLaDOS' problem? A laser was a laser. Even if you called it a Thermal Discouragement Beam, it's still a laser. As the laser turned on Wheatley screamed. It was rather funny how he screamed like a girl. Chell stared straight ahead. Not a regular laser beam. This was definitely an Aperture laser. There was always a catch with Aperture technology. It either only activates for a short time, or hurts if you touch it. There was always something.

"Chell, is my skin supposed to start melting?" Wheatley cried. Chell turned around quickly. Wheatley was standing in front of the laser!

"You moron! We don't know what it does yet!"

"Well, it obviously burns up stuff! Like me! HELP!" Chell didn't know what to do; she was going to die with Wheatley if she tried to save him! But if she didn't help, he would die alone! She ran straight into the laser and prepared for the burning pain searing into her skin. Surprisingly, there was no pain. It felt like cool mist on her skin. She grabbed flaming Wheatley by his hand, and tried to avoid the piles of molten metal dripping down Wheatley. On the other side, Chell dropped Wheatley into a pile of ice. The fire extinguished and a puff of smoke exploded from inside Wheatley.

"Ah, that feels good. Better than the itch relief. Aww. Yeah, oh that feels nice!" Wheatley said while sighing in relief. Chell sighed in relief too. One more second and Wheatley would be gone. But what was with the robot only laser? Was it to prevent GLaDOS from accessing the body of Cave Johnson? Actually, it made lots of sense. It was a good thing GLaDOS sent them instead of the two robots, they would have died back here. In fact, it had only been minutes away from the elevator and they were greeted by this laser trap. How many more traps were they supposed to set off? Chell took off and Wheatley followed behind her. She grabbed Wheatley's hand. It felt cool and dripping with ice water. She looked at Wheatley and smiled. It seemed to her that Wheatley blushed, in a robot sort of way. She giggled. They ran off into the next room. It was now definite Aperture did not want GLaDOS snooping around. There were huge signs on the wall stating paradoxes like:

Is the answer to this question no?

The only rule here is that there are no rules.

A male barber shaves all and only those men who do not shave themselves. Does he shave himself?

Wheatley was going to be fine. It seemed that he was so human, that he had a human perspective on these paradoxes.

"Is the answer to this question no? Yes? Wait, but then the answer is yes. So no, the answer isn't no. But then if I say no, then the answer is no. So it is yes. Argh! This is bloody confusing!" Chell tried to answer the other paradoxes. It was amazing how the human mind could create something impossible. After moving on halls of paradoxes, they reached a spot in the ground. It said.

"Memorial. Cave Johnson. 1900-1990. CEO, husband, friend, father and son." Chell dug the ground around the stone and saw the body. It was rotten and smelly.

"Ugh, I knew humans were smelly."

"I agree Wheatley." Chell picked the body up by the head. Wheatley picked up the feet. They dragged the body to the elevator. But first they passed more paradoxes. After getting in the elevator, they heard Cave Johnson's voice.

"Hello. If you hear this, you're bringing my body to a true burial ground. Either that or you want to steal my body. Please don't. Cough. I'm dead by now. Please bring my, cough, body to a true burial ground. I'd appreciate it. Cough cough." Chell felt guilty to betray her own father. But it was for science. She wondered how he would react being alive. After a long ride up, and some catchy elevator music, the doors opened. The large AI hung from the ceiling.

"Oh good. You brought him."

Wheatley

After bringing the body up, Wheatley reflected on the paradoxes he read downstairs. They were amazing. It was like an impossible cycle. That was what GLaDOS tried to tell him. Now he thought about it, when she said the sentence was false, GLaDOS meant that the sentence was wrong. But that meant it was right, because it said it was wrong about being wrong. He was stupid that he didn't get it before. But as GLaDOS put the body on the pedestal, Wheatley started whimpering. He knew more or less what was going to happen. He watched as the room grew dark.

"One more thing. Since I don't want the living dead walking around my facility, I have a better idea. I found lots of humans in storage, and many of them could support his consciousness. Here, I found a suitable body." Wheatley watched yet another dead body come out from behind the wall. He didn't know if he could go on seeing so many dead people. This one looked a little like Cave Johnson. The guy had dark brown hair and was rather tall. Wheatley poked the body and GLaDOS started smirking.

"Oh look. This one's called, Wheatley Addams. It's a small world." He was shocked. He was a smelly human too? What was the world coming to? But then what happened to his body?

"Oy, GLaDOS? What happened to me?" he asked timidly. GLaDOS put on a large screen and Wheatley watched a video play. There were a large group of men surrounding a table. They were talking about something. GLaDOS must've done something with the audio settings because now he could hear what they were saying."

"-think that this will work? The first few transfers didn't work."

"Definitely. The only thing that I'm worried about is for poor Addams. He's never been brave. But luckily the anaesthetics should take care of that." The man picked up a personality core. It was off, and obviously uninhabited. The men walked out of camera range. The camera switched views. The man holding the core placed it into the receptacle.

"That's part one complete. Now to get Addams." They walked away. Wheatley was distraught. He had never realized his past life.

"Moron Core, what was your first memory?" GLaDOS asked, in a more caring voice than usual.

"Uh, I remember the scientists crowded around me. They were all saying that I was perfect. Then they placed me on you. Then I was shut off. That was my first memory." Wheatley had no idea how he was supposed to react to being told he used to be a human. He knew how to react to being told you have brain damage, cancer, a dead relative or the itch. Once he was free, he was going to learn about his past life.


	3. Cave Johnson here

GLaDOS

It was interesting to know that the moron used to be a human. What if Wheatley was turned to his original form? It would be extra-interesting to see the moron stumble around like a fool. But eventually she would have to release him into the wild, where, he could tell Black Mesa! Argh! It was foolish of her to release all those subjects! They could have told Black Mesa! She heard that they even have branches all over the world! What if they find out? She would have to place extra turrets around the shed. And since the shed was destroyed, why not build over ground? It would look like a warehouse from the outside, and the inside would look like one too. But a specific elevator would lead into Aperture if you pressed the right buttons. Of course, she thought all this in a picosecond. She focused back on the body. Chell put in the body into a glass tube, and Wheatley stepped back. Chell followed suit. GLaDOS laughed maniacally for emphasis and sent a bolt of lightning into the pipelines. She sent batches of dark matter into Cave Johnson's body.

"It's alive, it's alive!" she shrieked.

"Can we stop with all the pop-culture?" Wheatley asked but with an awed voice. GLaDOS ignored him and continued. Wheatley's human body started twitching. Procedure nearly complete. The body in the glass tube disintegrated into dust and flew into the ceiling. Wheatley's human body woke up. It moved around.

"Ha! I knew that one day someone would bring me back to life!" Cave looked around. He saw Chell, Wheatley, and then GLaDOS. He stood up, fell over and GLaDOS watched as Chell and Wheatley rushed over to help him up.

"Thanks. Who are you guys anyway? Wait, you must be Black Mesa spies! Good thing I keep the prototype combustible lemon in my pock-hey, where is it?"

"Don't worry," GLaDOS assured them. "I removed it before shooting it with lightning."

"Hey, it worked! The GLaDOS project worked! So Caroline, how is it in there?" Cave asked. GLaDOS wanted to reply, but as she expected, her voice was shut off. Caroline came up and spoke.

"It's nice in here, but I have to fight off the AI before I can speak."

"It wasn't me talking it was Car-"GLaDOS was cut off again. Cave looked confused. Caroline must've sensed Cave's confusion. GLaDOS understood, if she saw her love talking with dual personalities, she would have no idea what to do. Caroline started talking again.

"Remember Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Yeah, it's like that." Cave raised an eyebrow. He started touching her chassis.

"Well, I see. But I would like to meet the Hyde side of my Caroline." Finally, GLaDOS' chance to talk to her creator.

"Hello Mr. Johnson. I must say, you look pretty good, how was death? I have to congratulate you, you know, on not failing building me. You did well, enough. Fortunately for me, when Caroline was loaded into me, she didn't take over my mind. "

"Ah, a feisty one. Well, make sure to tell me before switching personalities."

"Don't worry, Caroline hardly speaks up." GLaDOS said darkly. She showed Cave to his temporary home.

"Wait, he gets a resting home, but we don't?" Wheatley asked. "Not fair, not fair at all."

Chell

Cave Johnson, AKA, her dad, was every bit as crazy as his voice implied in lower Aperture. But crazy as he was, but talking to Cave was interesting. When Chell brought up lemons and life, he started laughing and talking about defeating death. But all in all, it felt good talking to a real human, especially since it was her dad. While walking, they came across a pile of rubble blocking off the pathways. Apparently, while Wheatley was navigating the Relaxation Chambers, he caused the walls to crumble and cave in.

"Okay, we're going to need to do something here," she told Cave. She hopped on some rubble and signalled Cave to follow.

"You know, I'm not as young as I used to be." Cave replied while climbing and throwing away a piece of loose rubble.

"No one is as young as they used to be." Chell replied while hopping from wall to wall. She threw two portals and leapt through. Cave followed behind. They landed on a catwalk on the other side.

"The new design for the portal gun has been amazingly improved. My Caroline's design looked more like a shotgun than a science experiment. What happened to my gels though?"

"Forgotten. Too lethal. GLaDOS doesn't use them anymore." Cave looked behind him. Chell could see that he was sad to leave all his original designs behind for newer designs. They reached the Relaxation rooms. Cave opened the door and looked around. Chell followed behind. It looked a lot like her room, but had blueprints, a desk, and the Aperture logo on everything.

"Oh, this looks exactly like my old office! Wait, I need to test something." Chell watched Cave press the painting, and then see a password lock pop out. It was so Aperture-like, having secret passwords. Cave entered a word that could only be the word, Aperture Science. The panels flipped around, revealing two beds in a bedroom.

"It's my darling Caroline's Fifteen Hundred Megawatt Aperture Science Heavy Duty Super Thermos!"* He was pointing to a panel in the wall. He pushed a button and a steaming pot of coffee popped out. Chell could see that Caroline was pulling a few strings within GLaDOS. Good to see that.

Wheatley

GLaDOS was never fair to him. Chell got to bring Cave to his home, Cave didn't have to test, but he had to stay and test like there was no tomorrow. But most of them were extremely sloppy. Worse than even his. Once, the cube was put in an impossible place.

"Hey, GLaDOS, cube?"

"Oh, um, oh what? I wasn't paying attention, oh, sorry." She pushed the cube into the water, and another cube dropped. Wheatley picked it up. Now he knew for sure, that GLaDOS was, a) scheming, b) scheming, c) baking muffins, or d) sche-wait, muffins? He had been really hungry today. GLaDOS had installed a hunger system. It was exactly like the itch. Now he had to 'eat' binary food every day, or else he would die. He thought that the dying was a lie, like everything else, but when he tried to prove it, he did die, and had to be reinstalled. He was hungry now. GLaDOS had also installed temperature sensing rods in his body. By what she was making it, it seemed like GLaDOS was testing how a robot would react to human must-haves. He downloaded some muffins from the Aperture Food Menu. It was so unnecessary to have this hunger. Even he, who was supposed to have bad ideas, thought it was unneeded. What would make GLaDOS care so much about being huma-Oh. He grinned. With the return of Cave Johnson, GLaDOS would have a new experiment, core-to-human. He knew the secret. It had just become so obvious now. Now to hang it over GLaDOS' head.

Cave Johnson

When those two, Chell and Wheatley, one his daughter, and another a personality core, woke him up from the dead, he had felt afraid, excited, but more excited than afraid. To him it had felt like only a second being dead. And once he laid eyes on the GLaDOS project, he saw it had been a different design than the original. It looked a lot better than he could ever make it. Caroline was a good fit for it. Too bad she had not become the whole consciousness. He would probably have a better time with Caroline. And as her daughter Chell explained, GLaDOS would force him into testing. It was remarkably easy, as it was his designs. He knew all about the Aerial Faith Plates' exact trajectory and angle of launch. He knew about how a little bit of momentum was lost while travelling through portals. Chell was fooled by GLaDOS that momentum was kept through portal travel. He had explained to her about this, because she was failing at the new tests. He had also explained that portals weren't holes, they were actually tunnels, so they take a bit of time to travel through. While resting in his bed, Wheatley had often pestered him about Caroline. He had talked to him about everything, every little design plan, line of code, and even the "testing" itch.

"That was a bloody horrible idea! That was incredibly stupid! It itches like bloody 'ell! And then it starts getting all painful if you don't take care of it! Oh, if I was human, I would probably start getting red rashes striped across my skin! But you should've made the relief so much better. It's like happiness being poured slowly across your body. It starts at one end, and spreads slowly. But once it's done, oh yeah, man alive! Nothing, and I say nothing feels better."

"What do you mean by painful? It wasn't supposed to hurt, it was supposed to itch."

"I told you, it does, but then it gets painful." Wheatley replied, obviously annoyed.

"No, it was never supposed to be painful, even after an infinite amount of time. It was supposed to itch. The AI could reject the itch. It was like an optional choice. It was added to push the AI into testing. My lab boys haven't been faithful." As he got up for a cup of coffee GLaDOS started droning overhead.

"Good Morning Aperture Science. Cave Johnson and Wheatley Addams, please report to the main testing hub. Chell [REDACTED], please come into the, special, testing track.

GLaDOS

So she hadn't been attentive when she released the humans into the wild. How was she to know? She wasn't focusing on testing more, so that kind of messed her up. In fact, once Chell came back, she came up with more than a billion; scratch that, actually she just came up with five thousand and seventy-three more ideas. Chell was her driving force. But with the risk of Black Mesa, she turned her focus to rebuilding Aperture and spying on Black Mesa. Now with Cave in Wheatley's body, no one from Black Mesa would recognize him as the maniacal leader of the Opposition. And Wheatley, it was easy to make a new body from scratch. Human skin and flesh was actually easy to make. Now, to store a core into a human was the hard part. Once she finished, she realized she had been dormant for a day in thought. She had to continue testing, even if just for testing's sake.

Chell

Chell ran her way into GLaDOS' Chamber. On the way she had to go through the corridor of failed experiments. She saw some liquid gloop and orange gas inside a chamber of glass. Chell observed one of these until something leapt out at Chell, luckily hitting the glass barrier. It looked like a small dog with no head, and rows of teeth. Chell felt a tingle fly down her spine and ran to the Chamber. She walked in and saw GLaDOS observing Cave and Wheatley on a few screens.

"So, where's this special track? I couldn't find it anywhere, not even on the map of Aperture." Chell said.

"Oh, that's because I just made it. I'm not even finished. It's very special. Not dangerous, maybe. But it's made with all the things I just made, including the GLaDOS gels. I improved Cave's tests. They were already perfect, except for a few tiny things, but I made perfection better."

"Um, by better, which spectrum of the gels do you mean? The perfection of lethality or, perfection of testing value?" As Chell finished, GLaDOS started fading away. The Chamber faded away until she found herself between the Chamber and a brightly lit room.

"Both." GLaDOS called from somewhere within her mind. She touched her head, and found headphones which appeared out of nowhere.

"This is not an actual test chamber; this track has its own dimension. I have to warn, even with your years of acrobatic experience, this test will boggle your mind. It is labyrinth-like, forcing you to backtrack to move on. I have to tell you this test is divided into sections. As you have no portal gun, the first section consists of Aerial Faith Plates, Hard Light Bridges, Excursion Funnels and general acrobatics. Then you must find the dual portal device. The second part consists of split second portal placement and using portals to reach areas you cannot, the third consists of gels, the fourth trace amounts of time travel and the fifth, impossibility. Good luck."


End file.
